According to the awesome Writing Screenplays that Sell, every good film has the following:

a protagonist

an antagonist

a companion

and a love interest.

A topical example is Inception, where Dom Cobb battles to reunite with his children. Within the world of Inception, it is natural to assume that Dom’s antagonist is Robert Michael Fischer (played by Cillian Murphy of ‘Scarecrow’ fame); similarly, that his love interest is Mal (played by Marion Cotillard of Un long dimanche de fiançailles fame). However, Fischer is actually just a pawn in Dom’s whole journey, and his love-interests are his children – more important to him than the question of whether he is actually awake.

It is ‘Mal’, or rather the manifestation of his guilt regarding his wife’s suicide, that is his enemy, and whose slaying marks his victory:

However, a similar motif of particularly speculative fiction really bugs me. This is where superheroes spend all their time fighting other people with similar superpowers – effectively nullifying their productivity, and leaving little time for any other civic duties. A classic example is the television series Heroes. The Indian narrator, Dr. Mohinder Suresh, predicts that the emergence of a new strain of humanity will allow us to solve problems that our modern democratic institutions, armed with 21st Century technology, cannot:

“Look at what’s happening to our planet: over-population, global warming, drought, famine, terrorism - deep down we all sense something’s not right. My father always talked about how an entire species will go extinct, while others no more unique or complex will change and adapt in extraordinary ways- He had a romantic take on evolution ... [But there is] a disease which threatens to eradicate them all. And in doing so deprives our species of its evolutionary advancement. Without this advancement, the challenges of the modern world – global warming, terrorism, diminishing resources – seem almost insurmountable on our thin shoulders.”

Yet in the first season of Heroes, and for at least the first half of the second season (by which point I gave up in disgust), the various protagonists focus their magic powers against each other and themselves; as with Peter Petrelli almost nuking New York City by mistake. In Heroes, the emergence of superpowers appears to result in no positive gains for society or the world at large – certainly none of the benefits predicted by our optimist Dr. Suresh.

Alternatively, in Lord of the Rings, Gandolf the Grey struggles against Saruman the White – one of the three wizards created to protect Middle Earth from Sauron, yet who eventually becomes Sauron’s ally.

Yes, a hero and their nemesis are only enjoyable to watch if they are of evenly classed. This also carries strong thematic and character development importance, as it allows us to isolate the essential differences between good and bad guy.[2] Yet the world of the superheroes and super villains increasingly resemble that of tribal militias, venting their petty squabbles in third-world countries, amidst civilians who – like the peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail – find the exact name of their current dictator irrelevant.

We might well drool over the Jedi in the Star Wars universe. Yet a closer look at its broad history reveals the following, eternal cycle, with countless civilians caught in the crossfire:

Sith getting their revenge

Jedi return triumphant

Sith get their revenge again

Even after the original Star Wars trilogy, I wonder how the Force actually helps the cause of freedom and justice in the galaxy:

In Episode 5: the Empire Strikes Back, Luke takes down the giant AT-AT at the Battle of Hoth – and then spends the rest of the film screwing up.

In Episode 6: the Return of the Jedi, Luke levitates RT-D2 in front of the Ewoks, exploiting the innocent superstitions of a pre-Contact species and clearly violating the Prime Directive. Furthermore, he hinders the Alliance infiltration group by giving away their position to Darth Vader.

In fact, if we asked those in that galaxy far, far away, who endured a Sith-led military dictatorship brought upon by with the full-cooperation of the Jedi,[3] whether they would abolish the Force-wielding Jedi and Sith alike from the galaxy, I think we can guess what they would say: ‘Order 66for the lot of you.’

End notes

[2] These differences usually include a loyal team, compassion, or – as illustrated in The First Avenger – humility and good old fashion American values:

Red Skull: What makes you so special?

Captain America: Nothing. I'm just a kid from Brooklyn.

[3] The so-called heroes of The Clone Wars, such as ‘General’ Kenobi, were fighting a war that was just a ploy by their power-hungry Chancellor come Sith-lord to consolidate power. Put simply, the Jedi were tools, and there is nothing redeeming, or glorious, in depicting them getting so used. While such labels may appear easier in hindsight, it should have been exceedingly evident that accepting into your ranks a few million clones, manufactured by some mysterious entity without your consent, was clearly dumb.

This is reminiscent of Mass Effect’s ‘Citadel’, which is a giant space station conveniently placed in the hub of galactic throughways. Numerous space-faring races use the Citadel as the centre of their shared governance, unaware that a malevolent AI race – intent on eradicating all organic life every few thousand years – planted it as a giant booby-trap. Do no other advanced sentient species have the equivalent expression ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts’?